Oliver Cromwell has been charged with despoiling the tomb of Henry V., but we read in Stowe's Annals: "A royal image of silver and gilt was laid upon his tomb, which Queen Catherine his wife caused to be made for him; but about the latter end of King Henry VIII., the head of the king's image being of massy silver, was broken off and conveyed clean away, with the plates of silver and gilt that covered his body." p. 363.
It is a common story amongst cathedral vergers, that Cromwell turned churches into stables. Like stories are told in the East, with judgments superadded. "It was related to us by our Tartar, that about fifty years ago, Tamr Pasha turned the church into a stable, and next morning all his horses were found dead."—Badger's Nestorians, i. 68.
[398] It appears from the following entry that when the wars were over, the cathedral was desecrated by being made a prison. "That a letter be written to the Mayor of Salisbury, to let him know that the Council are informed that the Dutch prisoners who were lately sent to the town, to be kept there, have done much spoil upon the pillars of the cloisters, and to the windows of the library there, being committed to custody in that place, and also that by reason that due care hath not been had over them, some of them have escaped, &c." October 10, 1653.—State Papers, Order Book of Council.
[399] Again we may remark that like excesses had been committed in Roman Catholic times. In the annals of Rochester, 1264, we find: "Portæ, siquidem, ejus circumquque exustæ sunt, chorus ejus in luctum, et organa ejus in vocem flentium sunt concitata. Quid pluras, loca sacra, utpote oratoria, claustra, capitulum infirmaria, et oracula quæque divina, stabula equorum sunt effecta; et animalium immunditiis spurcitiisque cadaverum ubique sunt repleta."—Anglia Sacra, i. 351.
After the Reformation Ridley was prevented from giving Grindal a prebend in St. Paul's by the King's Council, who had bestowed it on the King, for the furniture of his stable.—Blunt's History of the Reformation, 244.
In 1561, according to Strype, the south aisle of the cathedral was used for a horse fair.
[400] Rushworth, v. 476.
Instructions were given for the taking of the Covenant throughout the kingdom, "the manner of the taking it to be thus:—The minister to read the whole Covenant distinctly and audibly in the pulpit, and during the time of the reading thereof the whole congregation to be uncovered; and at the end of his reading thereof, all to take it standing, lifting up their right hands bare, and then afterwards to subscribe it severally by writing their names (or their marks, to which their names are to be added) in a parchment roll or a book, whereinto the Covenant is to be inserted, purposely provided for that end, and kept as a record in the parish."—Husband's Collection, 421.
[401] Husband's Coll., 416.
[402] Neal, iii. 81.